Revelations (Bloodline Series) (40 page)

After
engaging in a moment’s battle of wills, Eligos overpowered him and sent the
demon staggering backwards. He almost instantly struck again, but Eligos was
ready for him. Their swords clashed again and again, both of them appearing to
get more annoyed by the second, neither one able to gain the upper hand. The
demon swung low. Eligos jumped, narrowly avoiding a blow to his legs. He then
slammed his hand against the demon’s chest, allowing a flow of densely charged
energy to flow straight into him. The demon growled in pain before mustering
the strength to retrieve a small dagger from behind his back and stab Eligos in
his side.

My
breath caught in my throat, almost causing me to choke. Tears filled my eyes as
I watched Eligos fall to the ground, clutching his now bleeding side. The
dagger the demon had used must have had a form of power attached to it. A
normal blade wouldn’t have knocked Eligos to the ground so easily; he would
have healed almost immediately and continued to fight. What had Ballantine
given these bastards?

“Get
up!” Lucifer yelled, as though Eligos could hear him. “Get up...now!”

But
Eligos didn’t move. He half lay on the ground, obviously in a tremendous amount
of pain, one sword still in his hand. The fiend moved closer to him. He was
speaking, but no matter how hard I tried to read his lips, I couldn’t make out
a single word he said. Eligos threw his remaining sword away from him, and as
clear as day, I watched him say, “Do it.” A hot pain ripped through my chest,
and my body began to shake uncontrollably.

“Lucifer,
stop him!” I cried, watching as the demon raised his sword above his head,
preparing to bring it down on him. Eligos looked in Keira’s direction. She was
watching everything; she could see he was in trouble, yet she remained at Ballantine’s
side, seemingly devoid of all feeling. Eligos looked at her, his face betraying
his broken heart, and then closed his eyes.

“Noooo!
Noooo! Get up! Nooooo!”

Chapter 53

Loves
Cold Eyes

Hecate’s
Story

The
fight was starting to take its toll on all of us. Everyone was tired and
finding it more and more difficult to keep up with the number of assailants
forcing themselves on us. Our numbers had depleted rapidly after Keira attacked
with her deadly wave, and even more so after she lashed out with her holy fire.
We’d managed to take a lot of them down, but their numbers were frightening.
They just kept coming and coming.

Myself
and the other demons could still find strength to fight, but the guys were
bloody, beaten, worn out, blistered, and in desperate need of rest. I wanted to
try and heal them, but there simply wasn’t enough time between attacks to do
so. They trudged on as best they could, but if they didn’t rest soon I feared
we would have our first loss. They’d managed to move close together to try and
help each other. Vetis, Eaven, and Oroan tried their damnedest to stay as near
to them as possible to try and take some of the pressure off them, but they too
were constantly outnumbered.

We
either needed another duke to turn up with their army, or a frigging miracle;
either one would please me. Unsere was beside me, slicing her way through
Ballantine’s minions. I would put as many as I could into suspended animation
while she destroyed their souls. We had a good system going, and up to now had
only had a few near misses.

I
turned to look for Eligos. I’d managed to stay close to him for quite a while
before he ran to aid Lily. I searched the crowd as best I could while still
supporting Unsere, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. My stomach sank, and I prayed
he was still fighting. If I actually had blood pressure, it would have been
soaring. I looked up at Keira. The last time we fought she never took her eyes
off him; I hoped if I followed her gaze I may be able to find him, but it was
rather difficult from this distance.

I
tried to focus on her to face the same way she was...that’s when I spotted him.
I watched in horror as I saw him clutch his side and fall to the ground. Then
everything seemed to go in slow motion.

“We
have to get to Eligos, now!” I screamed at Unsere.

We
battled our way through our assailants, constantly bumping into them and having
to kill to be able to move forward. The demon he had been fighting with raised
his sword above his head. Eligos didn’t move.

“Noooo!”
I shrieked.

Danny
and Vetis heard me and looked in the direction I was running. Both of them
tried to push through the crowd to try and save him. I looked over at Keira
again. She could obviously see what was happening. Why wasn’t she trying to
help him? How could she just stand there and watch the man she claimed to love
more than anything die? Even from this distance, I could tell her expression
was cold.

The
demon began to lower his sword. I screamed at the top of my lungs for Eligos to
move, but he just closed his eyes. I knew I wasn’t going to reach him in time,
but I had to try. I was around twenty feet away from him, screaming at the
demon to spare him, when suddenly the creature began to convulse violently.
Blood spewed from his mouth, and a second later, I watched as a hand tore
through his chest, ripping his heart clean out. I waited to see who had saved
him.

The
demon’s body fell to the ground and Keira came into view, her eyes blazing red.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I turned to look back at the hilltop and had to do
a double take. She was still standing next to Ballantine, and yet here she was
in front of Eligos. I stopped a couple of feet away from them. Unsere fought
hard while I was rendered not only speechless, but powerless too. I was frozen.
Eligos opened his eyes and looked directly at her. Shock spread across his
face. She raised her hand in front her, and Eligos was forced to stand, still
clutching his side.

His
eyes were huge. He too had to do a double take when he realized she was
suddenly in two places at once. She reached out to her side and Eligos’s sword
flew into her hand. My eyes widened in panic. She was going to kill him
herself. Danny and Vetis tried to approach her, but as soon as they got within
three feet of her, they were blasted backwards by an invisible force. I wanted
to beg her to spare him, but no sound would escape me. She moved closer to him.
I felt physically sick.

To
my astonishment, she put his sword back in his hand, then touched his wound and
healed him. I was so amazed and overwhelmed, I feared I was about to hit the
ground. Keira reached up and put her hand to the side of his face.

“Don’t
ever give up,” she told him. “Eligos, I can’t live in a world where you don’t
exist.”

He
seemed to be lost for words. “I...wh...?”

“If
you die...I die.”

It
seemed everyone else had now seen her and were battling their way closer to us.
Keira’s hand fell from the side of his face, and she started to step back from
him.

“No!”
he gasped, about to reach for her.

“Watch,”
she told him, looking up at the sky. Her eyes changed from red to blue. Above
our heads was now what looked like a blanket of white light, the same light we
had seen when she sent her killer wave towards us. “All is not as it seems.” We
watched as the members of Eligos’s and Buer’s armies fell from the light,
landing all around us and sometimes on top of a few of our assailants. I
noticed Brad fall not too far away from us and instantly begin fighting again.

“What
the...?” Danny said, looking around him in awe. “How did you do that?”

“Smoke
and mirrors; plus, I had help.”

“Who?”

“Now
is not the time to explain,” she smirked.

The
army members continued to drop all around us, instantly engaging in battle. As
I was about to speak to Keira, she turned her head towards Ballantine so
quickly I was surprised it stayed attached.

“He
knows,” she said, softly.

I’d
expected her to say it in a much firmer tone, one of anger, slight panic or
fear, but instead she seemed deeply saddened. We all looked at Ballantine; he
stared at us for a moment, and then at Keira standing beside him, almost as if
he was having difficulty understanding what was going on. He wasn’t the only
one. A large blade appeared in Ballantine’s hand. He turned to face the Keira
next to him and raised the sword.

“No!”
Eligos shouted, about to lunge forward.

Keira
grabbed his arm. “Relax,” she told him.

We
all stared in shock as she evaporated as soon as Ballantine’s blade touched her.
Once again he looked confused. However, it didn’t take long for the look to
turn to one of pure anger. We all turned to Keira.

“You
all need to back away from me, and
stay
back,” she warned.

“Why?”
I asked.

“Because
he’s coming.”

Chapter 54

Revelations

Keira

This
was the part I’d been dreading. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt
Ballantine. We had become friends; he was like the brother I never had. He’d
introduced me to Tina and Mason, two lovely people who were worth their weight
in gold. He showed me new worlds, and helped me to control the power I had inside
me. And now I was betraying him. When I’d first agreed to do this, I felt
nothing for him. As far as I was concerned he was evil and sadistic. But once I
got to know him, to see how passionate a person he was...I must admit, even
though I knew what he was doing was wrong, I genuinely thought about standing
by him for real.

I
started walking away from my friends, closer to Ballantine. He thundered down
the hill and walked straight into the sea of people currently locked in battle.
If someone got close to him, be they his own people or ours, they were blasted
away from him, as though he had a force field around him. When he was only a
few feet away from me, he sent out a blast that cleared a circular space around
us. I could see my friends looking over, panic-stricken. He stood glaring at
me, anger and betrayal filling his eyes.

“How
long?” he asked coldly. “Tell me how long?”

“Since
the beginning.”

“Since....”
He began to struggle.

“I
know you’re upset,” I tried to say.

“No,
Keira, I’m not upset. I’m angry. Angry that I was actually stupid enough to
believe you were on my side; that I thought you were a friend. How could I have
been so foolish?” he spat. “How? Why? Why did you even join me, stay with me?”

“Ballantine—”

“Tell
me the truth for once.”

“We
had to bring you all together. God has ordered the souls of all involved to be
destroyed. We’d never have been able to find you if all this hadn’t happened.
My job was to stand by you and earn your trust until such time as something
brought us all out together.”

“So,
even your friends managed to fool me.”

“My
friends didn’t know. They all had to believe I was with you. We know you’re not
stupid…you would have seen through fake emotions. But the real thing—you can’t
fake that.”

“I
can’t believe I didn’t see it. Do you even care about how I, or your friends
Mason and Tina will feel? How hard it is...?”

“Do
you have any idea how hard this is for
me
?” I scolded. “To leave my
friends, my family, my lover; for everyone to believe I was a traitor that I no
longer loved or cared about them? Do you know how much strength it took every
single day to stay away from them? I cried myself to sleep almost every night
because I knew part of them now hated me.”

“So
you’re basically an all-round liar!”

“No!
I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I believed in your cause. I would love
nothing more than to be able to see my father, my grandfather, whenever I liked;
to reunite my friends with their parents, to see people happy with those they
love the most. Forever. Part of me wants to be able to allow all this to
happen...but I can’t.”

“You
could, you just refuse to. You would rather have people live for eternity with
broken hearts, broken faith. You would see people unable to love another; do
you have any idea how that feels?”

“Actually,
I think I do. Look, Ballantine, I know you’re doing this out of love. I know
you want everyone to be happy, to never feel the way you do. But wiping out all
these people in order to do so...it’s wrong. You say everyone can live here
happily…Ballantine, that’s not living...it’s a full stop; no births, no death,
no life...no…anything.”

“We
don’t
need
more people…we have more than enough already.”

“That’s
not for
you
to decide.”

“I
trusted you—”

“Ballantine,
please. I’m not your enemy; I don’t
want
to do this. You have a special
place in my heart. You took me in…you taught me so much…not just about
what
I am, but
who
I am inside. Please just stop.”

“Keira,
you may have fooled me once; shame on you. But fool me twice...I don’t think
so. I know you have to kill me…you can’t save me or
any
of these people—”